Description

A Cost Effective, Complete Electronics System Solution.

The Quantum Family of PCB's provides the system integrator with cost effective, flexible options for quickly assembling embedded electronic hardware. Built around a low cost high speed processor core, this family of PCB's allows the designer to utilize only the functions needed without the added cost of unused features. A series of expansion boards allow the designer to save time and design effort. The family of PCB's provides easily integrated options for motor control, driving values and solenoids, reading sensors, controlling bar-code readers, reading encoders, controlling displays and much, much more.

This makes the Quantum Family much more than just a computer. It is a fully integrated electronics sub-system. By selecting only the options you need, you can quickly assemble the hardware to suit your requirements and be on your way to coding and completing your design in less time and at the right price.

Contributing to Efficiency at the Systems Level

Unlike other stackable embedded computer systems, the Quantum System offers flexibility for flat, folded or stacked arrangement of PCB's to fit almost any physical arrangement constraint. This allows the designer to make the Quantum System fit their application rather than force the application to fit the controller; and that is what the designers of Quantum had in mind: offering flexibility and the ability to adapt the controller without adding cost to the rest of the system. This is why one available option is the Power Supply/FET Switch PCB. This PCB generates all the necessary voltages for the entire family of boards from a single, fused, protected input supply. Plus, the regulators were designed to have the maximum possible input range. This saves having to add additional power supplies and harnessing to your system simply to power our analog circuits.

A/D-D/A Module

No controller system would be complete without an A/D-D/A option for reading sensors and generating analog outputs. The A/D-D/A PCB provides a full 16 bit system with 8 analog inputs and 4 analog outputs. The D/A outputs are also looped back into separate A/D inputs to allow self test, calibration and current sensing. A separate onboard reference makes for simple software calibration of gain and offset in the system. 16 Bit operation of the A/D provides a 96 dB dynamic range for reading and controlling sensors. Full differential inputs, which can be used as singled ended if desired, allow connection to low noise sensors in order to provide a true instrumentation level of operation.

Integrated FET Drivers

The Power Supply/FET Switch Module with its single input power supply feature also provides medium current FET switches to allow the CPU to control lights, solenoids, valves and motors. There are also half-bridge drivers to allow control of reversible DC motors or simple stepper motors. By simply adding a ribbon cable between the Power Supply/FET Switch PCB and the Controller Core PCB, you can create your own valve controller or motor driver.

Programming Software

The designers of the Quantum family also recognized that in the end, it has the ability to download and execute your software that gets you to the finish line. Keeping that in mind, the system was designed with flash ROM that can be programmed via a JTAG port or can be updated using our flash loader via a serial port to a PC. Quantum Essentials, a set of low level embedded drivers, are provided with each CPU Module. Also provided free is a copy of QuantumTalk Lite which runs on your PC. With these two pieces of software, you can start running the Quantum system right out of the box without having to write any software. Of course with these tools you can quickly write your own application to run on the Quantum Controller. Software integration will no longer wait on development of the hardware; and to make sure that the worst case embedded processor application would fit in memory, there is 256K of banked ROM. To help you get started each system comes preprogrammed with a RS-232 controlled startup application that lets you read and operate the basic system functions (DIO, A/D, D/A, etc.)